Civil Disobedience
by Madhumalati
Summary: Second in the smallroom series. Ed from FMA and Hiei from YYH stuck in a small room together. Short jokes? Flames? Arm transformation? Hmmm......


Anime crossover: Fullmetal Alchemist and Yu Yu Hakusho.

_**Civil disobedience**_

Summary: the second in the small-room series. Ed and Hiei. Short jokes? Flames? Arm transformations? Hmm………

'So who the hell are you?'

Hiei turned narrowed blood-red eyes to face the boy sitting on a chair. 'What business is it of yours?' he said coldly, in a tone that had made lesser youkai faint or have unspeakable bodily reactions.

The boy wasn't fazed. 'Nothing much. It's just that I've been told to wait for someone here, and you're the first one to turn up.'

'I'm not here for you,' Hiei said shortly. 'So it isn't your business after all.' He looked around the room. It was gray and featureless and obviously did not contain Kurama, whom he had been sent to retrieve after he got lost during a fight with a demon that had had another of those Capes of No Return.

The only thing it did contain was a boy, about fifteen years old, with long blond hair and big eyes. The expression on his face dared anyone to comment on either. He was dressed all in black, with a cape over a full-sleeved top and black pants and white gloves. Hiei approved of his colour choice.

Still, he had nothing to do, so he summoned his preternatural speed and went out the doo-

Hey. What door?

Hiei blinked back into eyesight and gazed coldly at the room's now doorless walls, willing it to appear again. Any lesser wall would have obliged, but this one was made of sterner stuff. He turned to the boy.

'All right,' he said resignedly. 'What's up?'

'If I had to guess, the same thing that happened to me,' the boy said wryly. 'We're in the Room between the Worlds now. Anything could happen.'

_The Room between the Worlds_, Hiei mused. He had heard of it, of course. Who hadn't? The mysterious Room that drew in all the anime characters it found and used them for murky purposes; controlled by an entity that most simply called Disembodied Voice (although it was whispered in corners that the strange entity was also called a Fannfick Aut-hor). No anime character in their right minds wanted to be in there. Some of them never came out again, and returned to their anime dimensions years later with memories of painful deaths, strange surreal experiences, torture, meeting complete strangers who were usually sinisterly perfect alternate forms of the Fannfick Aut-hor who insisted on falling in love with them, OOCness and (horror of horrors) the Alternate Pairing. Many died from that shock.

'Hn,' Hiei said.

The boy nodded, recognising the seriousness of the situation. 'So you know of the Room, then. I'm Edward, by the way. Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. You can call me Ed.'

'Hiei,' he said simply in response.

'That's a funny name,' Ed said maliciously.

'Yeah well, what about yours, sun-head?' Hiei retorted, sick to death of _that_ comment. Sick to the other guy's death, that is. 'Shouldn't it be Edwardina?'

Ed snarled and stood up. 'Shut up, shrimp! You're even shorter than I am, so you're the one everyone would mistake for a girl!'

'What did you say?' Hiei hissed, drawing his sword. The shrimp reference was one he abhorred; only the penalty for killing humans had kept him from ensuring that Kuwabara enjoyed the most painful form of death imaginable.

Though Kuwabara probably wouldn't enjoy it, now that Hiei thought about it.

Edward repeated it. 'You slow or something?'

'I'll show you just how fast I can be,' Hiei promised, preparing to cut this arrogant child into a fine powder.

'_You're not getting along,_' a voice said cheerfully. '_Perfect!_'

'Shut up,' Hiei snapped before he realised that the voice had no source. He and Ed turned to face it simultaneously, their fight forgotten.

'The Fannfick Aut-hor,' Hiei breathed. He tensed minutely. He was going to meet one of the most dangerous entities alive.

'_Ya got that right, Hiei,_' the entity continued. '_Now, why don't the two of you just ignore me and get to the fighting, hmmm?_'

'What is that supposed to mean?' Ed said indignantly.

'_Well, it's just that……there's a running bet between myself and other Fannfick Aut-hors about who would win if the two of you fought to the death, so I decided that I'd put the two of you in a small room together and let fate have its way._'

'I don't like the implications of that,' Hiei said tightly.

'_Well, you're both so dreadfully short-tempered we figured it would only take a couple of minutes for you to start fighting – and that's certainly happened, right?_'

Hiei and Edward exchanged looks.

'_Anyway, don't mind me; just get on with the fighting now. Good luck!_' said the entity. There was a sharp buzzing sound as static filled the microphone. Hiei's sensitive ears made it unbearably loud, and a tiny hiss of anger escaped him.

'They wantus to fight,' Ed said flatly.

'So they can settle their bets,' Hiei said even more flatly.

'Like we're animals of some sort,' Ed contributed.

'Their pawns, to be manipulated at will,' Hiei said bitterly.

'I'm nobody's dog,' Ed muttered.

'And you think I am?' Hiei said rhetorically.

'Look on the bright side. At least they're not trying to pair us off with other characters.' A horrendous vision of Hiei with Armstrong flashed briefly through Hiei's mind. Little did he know that a similar vision of Ed with Kuwabara went through Edward's. They shuddered simultaneously.

Ed thought it was quite the wrong time to mention that he thought that Yukina girl was rather hot, because unlike the aforementioned human he actually knew who she was.

He had many shortcomings (and shortgoings) but a lack of knowledge of anime was not one of them.

Hiei sheathed his sword. Silence fell.

'Let's not do it,' Ed said.

'Hn?'

A grin spread across his face. It was disturbingly insane; it even managed to creep Hiei out a little. The famous Elric I-have-a-plan grin. 'Let's not fight. All those entities spending good money to watch us fight – just think about their faces if we refuse to.'

A smirk tugged at Hiei's lips. 'Sounds like a plan.'

'_What's going on? Is it all finished? And I only went to get popcorn……_' the entity lamented as it suddenly came back on air with a horrendous shriek that made Hiei wince minutely. Then it must have noticed the obvious lack of cuts, scrapes or damages, because the voice changed dramatically as it said '_Hey, what's going on here?_'

'Civil disobedience,' Ed said, his grin widening just a little. 'It's all the latest rage in India from what I've heard. To put it simply……'

'_Yes?_' the voice said.

'No,' he replied. 'We're not going to fight. In fact, we're going to figure out just how you keep us from escaping and get out shortly after that.'

'_Escape……shortly……_' the entity gurgled gleefully.

Ed turned a brilliant shade of purple.

'WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE COULD CRAWL THROUGH THE SPACES IN THE MOLECULES OF THIS WALL?'

Hiei's aura began to flare darkly. He looked as if he was going to incinerate something just as soon as he figured out what the target was and where.

'_You're not going to fight,_' the voice said skeptically.

'Yeah.'

'_Seriously. The two of _you.'

'Right,' Hiei said briefly.

'_That's a tall order,_' the voice said and left before they could kill it.

They were innovative, after all. They could probably find a way if they wanted to badly enough.

_**Time passed.**_

Hiei and Ed sat on opposite sides of the room, one staring blankly into space and the other kicking his feet on the floor. One dull thud, one metallic. Dull, metallic. Dull, metallic.

'You wanna play chess?' Ed asked finally.

Hiei raised an eyebrow, silently noting the obvious lack of a chessboard in the room. Chess was one of the few human games he did enjoy, and he had even beaten Kurama at it a few times since he had started learning a few weeks ago.

'Don't worry about that,' Edward said, eyeing the chair he had been sitting on and clapping his palms together.

_**More time passed.**_

'Check,' Hiei said, taking Edward's bishop.

That small evil smile flashed again, and Hiei wondered for a second whether he'd just made a mistake.

'_Come on, guys,_' the entity whined. '_You've been playing chess for three hours now! When are you gonna FIGHT?_'

'I told you,' Ed supplied, taking his eyes off the board to look up for a short moment. 'We're not going to fight. We can just sit here and play chess until you give up and let us out, or……'

'_Or what?_' said the entity in a small voice.

'Or you could let us out now,' Hiei finished. 'We're anime characters. We don't need to use the bathroom, sleep or eat unless the script demands it. Don't you know anything?' It was a rare speech for Hiei, who usually spoke in short, concise sentences.

'_Oi, come on,_' the entity pleaded.

'Your move,' Ed said.

_**Even more time passed.**_

Ed was asleep, curled up on the floor. Hiei was staring into space, flexing his right hand.

'_You'd better start fighting now,_' the entity warned. '_Or I'll – I'll–'_

'You'll do what?' Hiei said dangerously.

The entity groaned.

**_Nine hours after entry:_**

'_Okay,_' the entity said. Ed and Hiei looked up from their game of poker, which Ed had been teaching Hiei. For some reason, the look in Hiei's eye, as well as the wide-open jagan, had persuaded Ed not to cheat for once.

'Okay, what?' said Hiei, never looking away from his cards.

'_Okay, you can go,_' the voice said. '_Damn it,_' it added morosely.

The door appeared in the room. It was already dark outside. '_If you ever decide to fight, let me know, willya?_' the voice said hopefully.

'Hn,' Hiei grunted, folding his arms across his chest. Ed didn't even bother to reply.

'_I'm going to sleep,_' the voice said sadly before the microphone switched off for good.

Side by side, Hiei and Edward walked into the night to the well-lit crossroads that led to different anime dimensions.

'We're out, right?' Ed said.

Hiei nodded. 'The voice is gone.'

Slowly, they both relaxed. Then they turned towards each other with a single purpose in both minds. As their eyes met, they knew without question that the other felt the irresistible tug of that purpose as well.

The alchemist was the first to voice it.

'Now,' Edward said softly, ominously. 'What was that about me being a girl, _shrimp?_'

The end.

A/N: All right, Yume no Anime, hope that was what you wanted. I was going to take much longer but this idea just popped into my mind – a surfeit of history, is all I'll say; in 1921 there was a civil disobedience movement against the British Raj that was at the peak of its activity - and that is when Edward was in our world, right? Couldn't resist the reference - and the rotten rotten pun. And it was much funnier to think of them cooperating than fighting. Tado, thanks for the rec!


End file.
